Painkiller Black Edition

I consider the first Painkiller game as the second-best “old-school” (a.k.a. confronting many enemies simultaneously) FPS I’ve ever played, after only Will Rock. It’s got a fantastic atmosphere with excellent ambient sounds, great environments, the tallest bosses, and suitable rock music hits. I consider Will Rock to be the best, because I think it’s the only game of this genre that has a reloading function in all of the weapons! And most of the reloading animations are unique and impressive to watch at! I played the main Painkiller game around the time it got published, but I bought it from GOG because of the expansion. Also, good thing that Black Edition has all the difficulty levels unlocked for the main game (Trauma isn’t unlocked in the expansion) and anyone can play straight in the “Trauma” (the hardest) difficulty level in order to see the good ending. I would propose the game to anyone (above 18 that is) and I would advise to play a first playthrough in a lower difficulty setting, in order to play the 5th chapter and see the bad ending first (you don’t play the 5th chapter in the Trauma difficulty, as the game ends at the end of the 4th), and afterwards you should play in the Trauma difficulty to see the good ending. Also, both in the main game and in the expansion, you can save anytime you want (apart from the existing checkpoints), except when playing in the Trauma difficulty (where you only have the checkpoints). The expansion keep in mind that it is harder, especially the second half of it. I’d like to point out two negatives: 1) In the game there is a health meter and an armor meter. So, what’s the point of remaining with 5/100 health and 0 armor, and you find a 150 armor and then you’re killed in one hit?!! The hitpoints of the armor should be draining first, and not getting killed despite wearing it! 2) I didn’t like that in both ending bosses (main game and expansion) you have to wait for something special to happen in order to defeat them.

I love this game. Let me tell you about the things that make it great, and about the flaws that prevent me from giving it a 5. The basic gameplay: enter area; kill everything that spawns; proceed to checkpoint in next area. Repeat until end of level. From time to time, you'll get a boss battle. Your arsenal has some bizarrely creative primary and secondary fire combinations, like the gun that shoots shuriken and lightning. Let's start with the good things: This game is pretty. Not because of the technical aspects, although it was good when it came out - but each level is a little work of art. Some are based on real-world locations. Every one is different, but they all are intricately detailed. Take a stroll through a medieval city during the plague. Welcome the soldiers coming back from World War I trenches on a railway station. Drop int an abandoned factory for a quick safety inspection. Visit the Tower of Babel for some language courses. It's like a really fast sightseeing tour, only instead of buying souvenirs you stake locals to the walls. And then, there's the final level. Not to spoil anything, but it's a vision of hell, without so much as an ounce of fire and brimstone. Okey, maybe a little. The enemies you meet fit well with the environments. Most games use the same models for enemeis throughout all levels. Not Painkiller - here, the baddies are reused for at most three maps. It's a game that has 10 models for a simple "run up to you and whack you" enemy. This game has secrets. If you're as old a gamer as me, you'll remember that shooters of old (Doom, Duke, Quake) had a bunch of fiendishly hidden areas on each level. There also was a counter that told you how many of them you had found. Sadly, this doesn't appear in modern, more story-oriented shooters. But if you remember turning a level in Quake upside down just to get that one last elusive secret, you'll feel right at home with Painkiller. This game has freedom of movement. Wait, did I write that right? Freedom of movement in a shooter that leads you from waypoint to waypoint, even closing all other doors so you don't stray somewhere? Well, that's all true, but I mean a specific kind of freedom. Most levels in Painkiller don't have the invisible walls that other games freely use to prevent the player from ever wandering into place he shouldn't. Here, learn a few climbing techniques and you can get to great many places. The game even encourages it. Take for example the docks level: there are a few cranes towering above it. "No way I can get up there". But after a few dozen tries, you do. You wonder if the authors thought it possible, but then you find a secret there ;) Now, for the bad and the ugly: The story is cringeworthy. This fits well with the old games Painkiller is trying to be like, but at least they didn't have any painful cutscenes... Painkiller is repetitive. Remember when I wrote this game has a dozen of models for a simple melee enemy? Well, that's because there are hardly any bloody other types! And since they act the same, you use the same tactics over and over. This does get boring. If you played Serious Sam, you know that's it's possible to have distinct enemies in a simple shooter. Painkiller is too easy. You can outrun most enemies, and ammo is plenty. It's one of the only two FPS where even the highest difficulty seemed easy. Finding secrets requires ten times the dexterity of basic gameplay. Bottom line: Try it yourself. There are demos for 3 levels out there, they are pretty representative. Love them and you'll love the full game, hate them and you'll hate it as well.

Painkiller is a re-visit to the good ol’ days – the days where circle-strafing, bunny-hoping, creativity, and fun were the main ingredients. Painkiller is a nod towards classic FPS’es such as Quake, Serious Sam, Doom. and Unreal Tournament. You’ve got a health bar, several creative and bloody guns, and a ton of bad dudes that need to slayed – to put it shortly this game doesn’t aim for sophistication – it aims for classic shooting action. You’ll fly through the air whilst heavy metal blasts through your speakers, and you’ll possibly end up screaming “hell yeah bitch” and other more serious obscenities as you perversely kill anything that stands in your way. If you thought modern rehashed shooters were fun – then think again. People Can Fly (the developers) managed to make the very core the biggest strength; the shooting. Along the massive and beautiful levels, you’ll find weapons that are so unusual and fun to utilize that you’ll wonder why they have never been seen in any other game. With these guns you’ll run through these massive levels that are simply gorgeous, and shoot/slash/burn/zap/etc through hordes of undead. And when I say hordes, I mean it. Painkiller has an impressive broad selection of dudes to kill. And you can be assured that several levels have enormous bosses which aren’t like anything you’ve seen before. Often accompanying all this fun is the music; several hard/heavy metal which has an consistent pace. It will make your adrenalin pump. Remarkably for a game by a new studio, Painkiller suffers from very few problems, but they are still present: Story-lovers will be disappointed; the story is decent but the emphasis is always on the shooting. Cutscenes are far and afew, and often cheesy or outright mediocre. The second problem is that the pacing can get a little awkward towards the end. You'll often have to clear out a zone before you can move on, and the enemies will sometimes be hard to spot. Luckily you've got an compass that pin-points their location. In the end, Painkiller stands as a game which does so many things rightly, and so few things wrong. And for a mere 10 bucks you’ll have yourself a lengthy, classic, arcade shooter that simply oozes of fun. A must buy for any person who would like to call himself an fps gamer.

Play on normal difficulty, contrary to the eggo-reviews (mmm) it actually is a hard game (difficulty spikes later). There were at least 3 demo spamming 5 maps (that's alot of content) free for you to play when this game released. Really no reason not to try the game out and decide before buying even now. It's considered a lost gem for 1 reason alone: The ragdoll and physics engine. Outside of that, its basically just a really good looking serious sam game. Keep in mind this was the time of serious sam 2. I played demo alot back when these games came out, both came with demo. Serious sam 2 had a nice look and was a solid idea....but it was nowhere near the level of painkiller. Why? When u killed something in ss2 it just got 1 normal generic animation. It was stupid honestly. Using a chainsaw on an enemy was the same as rocket launching or shotgunning them, it was not fun or cool feeling. What's it like to kill something in painkiller? Its AMAZING FEELING. Basically get some tunes going and u can just go wild in this game. Sarah mclaughlin? yes plz. Play the demo, especially the city map where u get the machine gun. Imagine hoardes coming at u through a narrow hallway. u getout the stake gun....u shooot the first guy's foot pinning his body to the stairs....the mobs start to pileup and get stuck on the first guys body. u then shoot some grenades up into the middle of this pileup. And some of the most gloriest and goriest fps moments can be witnessed next. There are just so many options on ways to kill the enemies and the kills are always satisfying. 4/5 cause the bosses have ridiculously hard/unfair mechanics, the controls aren't fully documented, the ui is rly a chore to manage. You might get some bugs/crashes....its an old game. Still absolutely beautiful game tho. If ur wondering what version to get? Black ed. The many other games are apparently just poor cashins and re-imaginings of the original. Black ed is original game + its original first expansion.

Yes. It's a thing in this game, but somewhat hidden. I mention this because I didn't buy this game for about 7 years because "5 weapons? Laaaame..." It IS somewhat annoying that your third fire usually uses one of your primary AND secondary ammo. Stake gun is ASMD mode: fire a grenade with secondary and then fire a stake THROUGH the grenade - boom, makeshift rocket launcher! The Shuriken Launcher is neat, but costly: launch lightning by HOLDING secondary and hit primary so both fire buttons are pressed down together. The entire magazine is fire as a lightning turret! In Battle out of Hell, the SMG fires flame grenades as its combo mode, and the Bolt Gun is just a really difficult Stake Gun combo (shoot the grenades!) Rocket Minigun doesn't have a combo, and the Shotgun Freezer is what you would expect (freeze enemy then use the shotgun to shatter them is its "combo"... :P)